


Bridges

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5x18 Coda, Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Gen, Leo Fitz & Skye/Daisy Johnson - Mentioned, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons - Mentioned, coda fic, immediately after Ruby's death, references 5x14, references 5x18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 06:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14868725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: Daisy and Jemma have a conversation about Jemma breaking Fitz out behind her back.-Focus is on platonic Skimmons, also mentions of romantic FS and platonic FitzDaisy. References 5x14 and 5x18 but no descriptions or depictions of violence/torture/etc. Set immediately after the team's return from the Ruby mission.





	Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> for an Anon prompt on tumblr: "Daisy and Jemma have a conversation about Jemma breaking Fitz out behind her back."
> 
> Please read the tags. Also please don't engage in moralising about Fitz's behaviour in the comments as I have refrained from doing in the fic; this fic is about Daisy and Jemma. Also I would like to state for the record that as far as I'm concerned 5x14 should be drop-kicked into a black hole. But I digress.

The ride back to base was as silent and tense as it had ever been. Anger, frustration, grief, guilt, sorrow hung in the air like a sour aftertaste. Everyone on the plane, even those who hadn’t been there on the ground, knew that any word spoken would all too easily turn into another fight, and so nobody spoke at all. 

Until they landed. 

“Simmons.” Daisy stood. “My office. Now.”

Her eyes were glaring and unsympathetic. It was a frightening look on Daisy, but one Jemma couldn’t say was unexpected, or entirely undeserved. Still, she found she couldn’t follow until Daisy had marched away down the gangplank, bristling. Jemma fumbled the clasps on her belt before she could get up to follow, Fitz’s hand slipping out of her own, his well-wishes a wordless mumble in her ear.

It had been a long time since Jemma had felt anxiety like this. Anxiety, and all the other complicated things there were to feel. She followed Daisy down the halls without any sensation in her legs: only the overwhelming, buzzing, drowning, inescapably bitter anxiety. Her stomach twisted. Her hands clenched and unclenched. She wondered what the acid would have tasted like, what that kind of death could have been like if she’d got it wrong – a process she, unfortunately, knew in quite excruciating detail - and it was with that degree of knife’s-edge anticipation, that she knocked on Daisy’s half-open office door, and slunk inside. 

“Sit,” Daisy ordered, and Jemma did, taking a seat in the chair on her side of the desk. Digging her nails into the arms and then, when she realised that would be too visible, digging her nails into the palms of her hands in her lap, where Daisy was less likely to be able to see. If she could, she didn’t show it – and maybe, Jemma wondered, even took a little satisfaction in it. Again, she couldn’t say it was unexpected. Or undeserved. 

“You wanna explain yourself,” Daisy demanded, “or shall I?” 

Jemma blinked, surprising even herself when she could find no words to make a start. But what did she want to say? A justification? An apology? Surely she’d written up this speech in her head before she went through all of this but in this moment, under the sheer weight of Daisy’s glare from across the table, she found nothing.

“Alright, I’ll start,” Daisy continued. “You broke Fitz out of prison. Why?” 

“He shouldn’t have been in there. I- I know what he did was-“ 

Daisy shook her head, fist clenching, resisting the urge to slap her hand on the table and snap it in two. 

“This isn’t about what he did. This is about what _you_ did. It’s not up to you that he’s in there, or why. He volunteered by the way, and if he didn’t, I would have volunteered him. I think you’re forgetting that, for some godforsaken reason, _I am in charge here._ I gave you an order. Mack gave you an order. Why did you think you could just disobey?”

“It was the right thing to do,” Jemma insisted. It was a struggle to keep her chin up, but she was managing it. So far. 

“The right thing to do was to be at your post, where I told you to be. Now a young woman who needed our help is dead. Deke could have been too, if not for Piper’s field medic training and, I dunno, some kind of miracle. The ‘right thing to do’, _Doctor_ Simmons, is _your goddamn job._ You want to have an argument with me? With Mack? Fine. Have it. But not a mutiny. If I can’t trust you to be out here and have my back I might as well just throw you in downstairs with Fitz. I’ll do it. Don’t fucking test me right now, Jemma, I swear to God-” 

Shaking, Daisy paused and took a deep breath. She ran a hand through her hair until she felt steady again. Jemma, still reeling, sat in mortified silence until Daisy spoke again, her tone a little softer, but measured, and no less emphatic.

“Sorry,” she said. “That was too much, I’m just – going through a lot right now. I know why you did it. You love him. You want him to be back to normal, you want him to be free, you want him to be the hero. I get it. I love him too, I want to believe in him too, I want the feeling of clawing out my _lungs_ every time I _look_ at him to go away. But Jemma, _please,_ I _need_ you to understand that I can’t have him out right now. And I can’t have you creeping around behind my back. This is bigger than him, or you, or me. We can’t lose ourselves, we can’t lose this team. Do you understand?” 

Jemma felt hot tears roll down her cheeks, and nodded. More than anything, she wanted to say _yes._ But there was something else she had to say first.

“It was the right thing to do,” she repeated. “You were the one who taught me that sometime the system, sometimes our superiors can be wrong. I believed you were wrong, Mack was wrong. I tried to talk to you about it but you didn’t listen and without Fitz we were too short on team members to go after the other target. So I took matters into my own hands, and _I was right._

“I know it looks bad. A woman is dead. But Daisy – that machine was fully functional when Fitz and I arrived and if we hadn’t been there, Ruby would have had a lot more gravitonium on her hands a lot faster. I don’t regret what I did. And I don’t regret the fact that Fitz chose to keep me alive by fixing the machine. I would have done the same, and I don’t think you would have asked him for anything different.” 

Daisy nodded, but she couldn’t help but feel a sting. The sting of knowing where she apparently stood in Fitz’s priorities. The sting, almost, of rejection – which on top of everything else between them, she thought, shouldn’t hurt so much but it did.

Jemma swallowed hard, resisting the temptation to avert her eyes from Daisy’s as the hardness in them began to crack and turn to pain.

“But I do understand –“ Jemma continued, fighting to keep her tone steady, “- that I’ve jeopardized your trust in me. I knew that going in and I’ll take the consequences if I have to. And I’m sorry. I truly am. I wouldn’t have done it if I thought there was any other way.”

“There’s been a lot of that going around lately,” Daisy murmured. Finally, Jemma bowed her head. But she did not take it back. She couldn’t. She simply waited for Daisy’s judgment to be passed down. 

It came in the form of a muted jingling, clacking sort of sound. Curious, Jemma lifted her head a little to find that Daisy had slapped a bottle of pills down on the desk in front of her. Frowning, Jemma tilted her head to try and read the label. 

“What’s this?” 

“For Fitz,” Daisy said. “I was going to take it to him when I got back, but since I can’t look him in the face without wanting to throw him into a wall right now, I figured it might be best if you do it.” 

Hesitantly, Jemma took the bottle. She wasn’t much accustomed to punishment, but she was quite sure this wasn’t how it was usually supposed to go. She eyed Daisy uncertainly. 

“So does that mean I’m to lock myself in with him then, or…” 

Daisy shook her head. “We need you in the game, Jemma. Take those down to Fitz and then go check on Deke. Mack and Piper did their best but I’m not sure Wikipedia counts as a valid medical instruction tool.” 

Jemma almost smiled a little at that – but not quite. The stakes were still too high, and the gaping wound between them still felt raw. At least now though, she thought to herself, there was a glimmer of hope, that some of this pain was venom being expelled. Some of the blood they had spilled was rotten. Daisy felt the same, she was sure, and that was the reason for this gesture. Clenching her fingers around the bottle as if she could hold onto this hope, Jemma pushed back her chair and stood. 

“Of course. I’ll report back in an hour, Director,” she promised, but Daisy shook her head. 

“Take the night,” she said. “I’ll call you if I need you.” 

It still felt too odd to say _yes, ma’am,_ but Jemma nodded something to that effect and took her leave. Daisy watched her go, feeling a little relief, a little pain, a little hope. A little inspiration, too. She needed to do something about that word.  _Director._


End file.
